Lent

Lent used to be my favorite time of year.  This is not because I was a devout Christian, though I was raised Catholic, but rather for what Lent allowed me to give up.

It was perfect.  Here's a religious reason to give up sweets, chocolate, junk food, whatever until Easter Morning.  God was the best excuse to cut down, restrict and then binge on Easter candy 40 days later.  And I wasn't alone - I joined many in their givings up, hoping this would yield in some concrete weight loss.  If I didn't want to give up something, the alternative was to do something more for the good of the people, like exercise more.  Because, that makes sense in the spirit of goodwill...

Being raised with much Catholic guilt, this should have made me feel awful.  I was using God and religion for my own good, total opposite of what it's supposed to do. 

The process of giving up what we love for sacrifice has deep roots and meaning and is meant to teach us to reorganize our thoughts centered around God and Christ, to really notice our blessings and all the wonderful things we truly have in our lives.  We are not worthy, and thus are taught to suffer for 40 days since Christ died for us.  The religious implications are fine within the context, until you have an eating disorder and all goes to the ED, not God.

This used to be the best time of year for me to restrict.  Post-holidays, everyone is on a diet.  My birthday is about 3 months after the binge-induced holidays which gave me the chance to be skinny again before my next birthday.  Lent offered me a chance to cold turkey not eat certain foods. Perfect storm.

When yesterday was Fat Tuesday, I sorta chuckled and felt sad at the same time.  First, the name is enough to make me cringe (still), but more importantly, I laughed it off because I wasn't going to eat any differently today than I was yesterday or tomorrow.  And while it's true I don't consider myself very Catholic anymore, I'm actually feeling free and more blessed by not having the Lent rituals dictate my next 40 days.  I will have Cadbury eggs in the coming weeks and focus most importantly on being a better person without my ED.

You know what - I need to take all this back.  Forget it.  I do have something to give up.

It's my ED. 

I'm working hard to kick it to the curb.  And while my ED has been terrible and life-sucking, even life-threatening at times, the sacrific is hard.  ED is my crutch for stress, for feelings.  So what would giving up my ED for Lent do? 

It would make me feel more blessed.

It would continue making me a better person to me and those around me.  I'd have even more energy to spend on others, making friends, relationships, connections.  

That's pretty Christ like if I'd say so myself.